Dir. Rob Schmidt, 2003, US/Ger, 84 mins
Cast: Eliza Dushku, Desmond Harrington, Emmanuelle Chriqui, Jeremy Sisto
Review by Elizabeth Griffin
Wrong Turn opens with some promise with Chris (Desmond Harrington – seen recently in Ghost Ship with Gabriel Byrne) racing down the highway in his Mustang convertible to make a job interview. The pounding soundtrack and the slick photography of John Bartley (The X Files) set a fast pace. But when Chris meets an accident, he realises he will have to leave the main roads if he is to make his appointment. The choice of an alternate, backwoods route will lead him into the path of a group of friends on a weekend break (most notably Jessie – Eliza Dushku), but also into the territory of the inbred mountain inhabitants.
Is this sounding familiar? – it should be. From the gruesome contents of a log cabin in the woods, to the toothless shambling maniacs and the hapless policeman who crosses their path, Wrong Turn takes a bow towards seventies horror classics like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Deliverance is even given name-check – a clumsy reference that only serves to remind us of a less glossy but truly frightening journey into the American wilderness. Despite the title, Wrong Turn makes no original departures from what is now an all too well travelled road. Likewise the running time, which falls a little short of 90 minutes, betrays the filmmakers inability to sustain interest in the bland stock characters – the doomed friends, the feisty young woman and the hero “I’ve got a plan” hunk.
In one of the better scenes the kids – fleeing the horrors of the log cabin – stumble into a clearing strewn with deserted cars and the ephemera of abandoned camping trips. The ‘car graveyard’ is a good touch, but rather than lingering in this chilling setting, Schmidt whisks his characters away and back into the woods. Similarly the director overplays the night time episodes, and those within the confines of the cabin, and would have done better to play up the scenes when the gleeful cannibals pursue their prey under the glaring sun – for all the world as if they were on a turkey shoot. Although there are the mandatory jolts and shocks, Schmidt creates nothing that will remain in the mind after the credits have rolled. This has all been done better, and much nastier, before.
